'in that bow of the boat is the gift of another world.' John Ruskin
…and back again
We grabbed a brief window of good weather to take Spring Fever back from Suffolk to Cowes. Crossing the Thames Estuary, we retraced our route out, including Foulger’s Gatt, which runs across the London Array windfarm.
After stopping in Ramsgate for the night, we went through the Gull Stream, inshore of the Goodwin Sands. Two Border Force vessels followed us – they had spent a long night finding and rescuing migrants from small boats.
What’s that gun for?
North ForelandDover Castle – hardly time to look as we focused on dodging ferriesFishing boats on the beach at Dungeness, where the water is deep a few yards outShore fishing by the power stationsNuclear powerBeachy Head in the distance, just before we heard the 6.p.m. warning of Force 7 and thunderstorms overnight – so we diverted to Eastbourne. Force 7 was still in the midnight and 6am forecasts but didn’t materialise. The midday forecast was back to F3 to 5.In the lock at EastbourneAn engineless boat next day. We had seen it paddle out of Ramsgatetheday before.A tow from us, through thelockand dog-leg entrance channelThis was coming towards us – not a cloud on the water but a sheet of rain.Beachy Head lighthouse We saw 5 separate thunderstorm systems on Thursday afternoon, three visible at the same time. Two went right over us, one we caught the edge of, and after we came through that we saw another two not far away – but bothmissed usLeaving the first thunderstorm behind, after going through a torrent of rain. We were next to the Sussex windfarm, whose lightning defences took large numbers of strikes,and maybe protected us. The thunderstorms begin to clear away to the east and the sky brightensA quiet evening in the Looe Channel, a short cut at Selsey Bill.Sunset as we approach the Solent
The wind was far too light to make way against the tide – and then, infuriatingly, we ran out of diesel fuel just after passing the Forts into the Solent.
That meant tacking all the rest of the way in light winds against the tide, which took till 3 a.m.
We anchored in Osborne Bay for the night, sailed off the anchor next morning and, after alerting the harbourmaster, sailed up through Cowes Harbour to the fuel berth just south of the chain ferry. There were two Southampton ferries to keep clear of as we went up river, but alerted by the harbourmaster, the ponderous chain ferry waited for us before it rumbled across.
We rounded up straight onto a space on the fuel pontoon, and dropped the main as we stopped, feeling quite pleased by the manoeuvre. There was an audience watching: the crew of a large motor yacht occupied the rest of the fuel berth. We heard they’d just had to spend £1,300 to fill their tanks.
At sea, we had cursed ourselves for miscalculating fuel usage – but discovered the fault was not in our arithmetic but in the fuel gauge, though we should have been checking it more often and known about it.
After putting in 32 litres, fractionally over a quarter tank full, the gauge is showing half full. At 63 litres, half the tank capacity, it is showing three quarters full. So that half tank we thought we had when we left Eastbourne was actually a quarter. We won’t let that happen again.
tide by tide 